


Slowing the Pendulum

by YellowShapedBox



Category: Death Note
Genre: Elsewhere Fic, Gen, Intermission, Major Original Character(s), Original Flavor, Police, Second Arc, United States
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 09:17:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowShapedBox/pseuds/YellowShapedBox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the third year of Kira's reign, Monique Hutton is taking no break as a police officer. The work comes less frequently now, but it tends to reach unwanted levels of excitement when it does. The ranks have thinned to compensate. And Monique sees that the world is, indeed, a fearful place under his shadow.</p><p>But though she despises Kira, she can't honestly hope for the day when L catches him. She's paid attention to the mayhem that punctuates Kira's rest periods. She knows that his death or capture will unleash every criminal impulse he has suppressed. She knows the world needs to prepare.</p><p>It is an unpopular stance. But she will soon find she is not alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Overrun

The talking heads on the TV were yammering again. It sounded like Kira was killing some new petty class of criminal. But there was never any question that they were yammering about Kira. They always were. The world's grisliest reality show, back to back and wall to wall.

Chantal was at the couch, glassy-eyed, the band sliding slowly out of her ponytail, whole clouds of hair forming to each side. She probably had homework to do, but Monique would give her a minute to decide for herself.

“I mean, if you plan to steal a DVD, you'd better take your aspirin,” said a bubbly panelist - not one of those raving Japan groupies who thought they needed to sound about eight to get an audience. A totally American flavor of bimbo. Maybe that was worse. “Why should it be any different if you steal pixels?”

Well, at least they weren't putting hits out on people the way they were last year, always with the coy reminder that the audience be on the lookout. There was only ever one audience member, of course. And now they'd been downgraded to sucking up to him. Monique had to hand that one to L.

From an artistic standpoint, anyway. It's not like any lives were spared.

“Good thing Kira doesn't punish people who _did_ pirate media in 2006, though, huh?” said the other guy, the kind of two-bit anchor who thought himself a real jokester.

“Yeah, that's the key, I think. You get the chance to redeem yourself.”

“If you pay attention, anyway!” He laughed like he was reporting on the latest feisty-old-lady story.

It wasn't as though the networks had to sacrifice their ratings on Kira's altar. Monique was a beat cop whose job description had become much more generalized over the past two years, and she knew only too well the complications that Kira brought. But staring down the barrel of a camera all day did a number on your nerve. They hadn't forgotten Sakura.

Monique barely noticed Chantal switching off the TV. Because she knew it could get worse. She knew the time would come when L would catch up to Kira. (Her entry in the office betting pool was for this November; she didn't know better than anyone else, but two years and eleven months had a certain ring to it. Come to think of it, Steve at the Queen Bean would've liked to hear that anecdote. Must mention it next time.)

She wished she could cheer the day. Kira was a tyrant and a murderer. But Kira was also a very effective deterrent to crime. When he was gone, it would be like a dam had burst, and the shrunken, insufficient police force needed to shore up the banks before that happened.

But now she knew it wouldn't. At least, they weren't about to give it a thought in Acropolis County, New York.

She shook her head. Worrying. It never helped. On with things.

“I don't know how you can stand to watch that crap, sis,” she called, as she began taking off her full-body armor.

Chantal shrugged. “Nothing else on but cheesy doramas.”

“Your homework's done?”

Chantal heaved a big resentful sigh. She was doing that a lot lately. She'd never once told Monique “you're not my mom”, and if she said it to anyone else, she'd probably be more the kind of kid who wanted a smacking, but that show of disenthusiasm... she was starting to act like, for all intents and purposes, Monique _was_ her mom. It was true enough, but Monique wished to hell she could just keep Chantal as a sister with a different economic setup.

“Yes, I've done my homework, Mo. Would it kill you to let me turn my brain off for a few minutes?”

Monique sank into the tatty old recliner. Just lying down made sleep feel like the best idea of her life, but it looked like it'd be slow in getting there. “It'd help if you actually _enjoyed_ turning it off, Chantal.”

“Tough day at work?” she heard Chantal ask.

“Relatively, yeah,” said Monique, sitting herself up to discuss work like a civilized human being. “Skopje got shipped off to suspect protection... we got tips on what sound like _two_ more fucking photo rackets... and I _finally_ got to run my long-term plans by Sheriff Bentley – who said we'd have to wait for more funding.”

“Yeah, that does sound pretty--” Chantal frowned. “Wait, is that the pendulum thing?”

“Yeah.”

“ _Ouch._ ” Chantal let it sink in, then gave her the side-eye. “But I know how crazy you were about that. How's that a _relatively_ bad day?”

Monique chuckled wryly. “I guess it really isn't. But I did meet a cute guy after work. _Very_ forward: gave me his card _._ Latin looks, talks like the BBC, _hugely_ self-taught – big reader, too, turns out he's read all sixty--”

Beep.

That was his number on the phone. Monique excused herself.

_(555)547-5878_

_8:45 PM 7.27.09_

_Hi, it's Steve. I've got the world's biggest plate of oysters. Laura doesn't seem hungry, but it's still a party. My place at 8? NB: Save room for dessert!_

Oh, I could have _sworn_ I mentioned Laura. Don't worry, babe, we're breaking up real soon now. We won't have to regret anything.

Monique let out a decisive snort. “Never mind, he's a douche. I'm going to bed.”

“Need a hug?” said Chantal. She sounded casual, but Monique knew better than to buy the act.

She also knew better than to give in. “It'd just exercise my wimp muscles. But you're sweet, kiddo.”

“Fine,” called Chantal. “Could I at least see the douchebag text?”

“Eh, sure.” She gave the phone an underhand lob to the sofa. She'd locked correspondence from all the important numbers, anyway.

She faced herself in the bathroom mirror. She didn't look noticeably more tired than she usually did, to be fair. And it wasn't like tomorrow could get any _worse._ Unless, of course, some other clown decided he was shinzo'd for a lamb and might as well be shinzo'd for an officer. Good thing she didn't believe in jinxes.

Better load up on melatonin, just for sanity's sake.

When sleep took her, she found herself in a foggy street on a cool afternoon. She was wearing a sweeping lilac evening gown that pinched at the armpits, but she was very reassured, leaning on Steve Gevanni's arm. She thought dimly she'd been angry with him, but it can't have been very important.

“It's been a nice walk,” she murmured. “I'm sorry for any doubts.”

“Flattered,” said Steve, in a very flattering tuxedo.

“So where to next?” she asked.

They moved, ghostly-quick, along the road, seeing nothing but the cobblestones at their feet, until Steve brought her to a stop, and the fog cleared away to reveal a marquee reading HAMLET.

“You _are_ a lit nerd, aren't you?” said Monique lightly.

“All-purpose, Monique. All-purpose.”

They were in the auditorium now. Resplendent, all done up in red velvet and marble. But maybe that was wrong. Maybe she shouldn't be in the theatre with him. Why was... yes, that was it.

“I don't remember telling you my name,” she said.

He looked straight into her eyes. “You didn't. It's just destiny.”

She pulled herself away from him. “You are a _creep._ ”

And then she noticed the white woman hanging on his other shoulder. Pretty and graceful, lovely chestnut curls. She had no face, but there was no mistaking who she was.

“And who's that? That's fucking Laura, isn't it?” she growled.

Steve bowed his head debonairely, like her upset didn't matter. “A gentleman's duty. I'm sorry.”

She wanted to see the play. She knew she did. But she had to do it away from him. But now she saw that every other seat was full. None of them could even see her. Resigned, she sat at the only seat in the house, next to Steve's right shoulder.

“You keep your hands off me,” she said, curling her bicep meaningfully. But then the curtain rose, and the play began.

The stage was bare. One of those annoying minimalist things. At least the costumes were okay. Francisco said “Who the fuck are you?” and Bernardo said “I'm relieving your shift, asshole,” but they'd got no further before Laura opened her mouth, and the sulking drowned them out.

“You stood me up,” she told Steve.

Steve grasped her hand. “Laura, don't be that way. I didn't. I only rescheduled. I _had_ to.”

“Yeah,” called Monique. “But you might have caught the big fucking schedule conflict here?”

Laura didn't have a face, but as she leaned over, it was clear that she was looking at Monique for the first time. “You...” She clutched the air in hysterics. “ _Gentleman my ass!_ ” she shrieked, and burst into flames.

Monique watched with mild interest as she quickly burned away into embers. “So does she always get into snits like this?”

Steve shook his head. “You mustn't be so hard on Laura. She has a difficult past.” He grabbed her withered arm from the ash-heap. “Look.”

There was a tattoo on the bicep. A heart reading Laura, linked with the Superman logo. Monique blinked, not sure how this was supposed to explain anything.

“He was an asshole,” said Steve firmly. “Never date a journalist, Monique. They're just as bad as any other bohemian lowlife.”

“I'll keep that in mind, _Your Majesty,_ ” she snarled. “Now can I please watch the damn play?”

It was Ophelia and Hamlet, now, on the featureless stage. Ophelia looked how she had in high school, but she'd been Gertrude, hadn't she? It wasn't her anyway. No matter.

“Hey, Hamlet,” said Ophelia, “I know you've been acting like a total douche lately, but I thought you could --”

Hamlet flung out a stop signal like a robot with bad reflexes. “Gee, I'd like to make it up to you, babe,” he drawled, “but unfortunately dargleflan blibbity snoo.”

Well, that didn't seem right.

“I never loved you,” Hamlet went on. “I don't like your father either. Or the human race, for that matter. Get thee to a nunnery.”

“Oh God,” wailed Ophelia, “why hast thou forsaken him?”

Okay, that was better, Monique thought. She looked down and saw she was in uniform.

“Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad. Such is the effect of marriage.”

Monique couldn't stop looking at Ophelia's face, but she knew now she didn't want to. She knew she had to tear herself away.

“I'll bring down the whole institution of marriage if I can before murdering the king!” trumpeted Hamlet.

“I...” mumbled Monique, queasy, hauling herself up off the chair like she couldn't quite handle her own weight.

“Because I'm _crazy!_ ” clarified Hamlet. “But it is no consequence...”

“I need air,” Monique whispered.

“Monique...” said Steve softly. Everything was echoing, pounding. She ran for the exit. A green curtain. She just had to reach...

“Monique, no,” said Steve, imploringly, rising from his chair. “ _Wait..._ ”

“To a nunnery...” rumbled Hamlet.

“You won't find fresh air, not out--”

“ _Go._ ” She ripped aside the curtain.

And she was outside. There was no lane. There was no concealing fog. There was no theatre. There was only hill after hill, roiling with oysters, fluttering obscenely under an iron-gray sky of eternal twilight. A world overrun by oysters. The world's biggest plate of oysters. And Laura, no, a girl whose name was written L.L. in the ash could never stand to face that. Monique couldn't stand, she could scarcely look, and Ophelia cried in her voice, drowning out all else, “ _O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!”_

“Officer Hutton!” yelled Steve Gevanni, catching up to her. “Officer Hutton, are you all right?”

She looked at him. Was she supposed to form a sentence? “It's...” She waved her arms blearily around her. “It's _horrible._ ”

“Yeah,” said Gevanni, looking out over the blasted expanse. Familiar territory to him. “It's been like that for a while. But don't feel too bad. Most people don't notice at all.”

“Christ,” she said, digging under her body armor for her pants pocket. “Christ, I really need a smoke right now. Do you have a light?”

“Hm?” said Gevanni, not quite processing the request. “Sure.” He handed her a lit gas desklamp.

“I meant...” Monique's eyes were hot, and her face was twisting like the face of a little girl with no control. “I meant, like, a _match_ or something."

“I wouldn't recommend that,” said Gevanni brusquely. His eyes followed the light cast by the lamp, illuminating the landscape, the world, ever more harshly, in coals of fire. “Don't you know that smoking is a leading cause of oysters?”

She seized Gevanni's wrist. Begging, now. “So what... so what exactly are you trying to say here, Steve? Are you saying we just have to put up with all these oysters from now on? Are you saying there's...”

“...nothing we can do?” she finished into her pillow. And then the tears came. No sobbing. They just leaked out. There was no preventing it. There was no preventing anything. Kira... there was nothing...

It took Monique a few minutes to remaster herself. She told herself firmly that she'd had a lousy, Kira-infested day, a nice chat about Sherlock Holmes, and some sleeping pills, and they'd beat themselves into the mother of all troggle-humpers. But she couldn't get back to sleep. So she got out of bed to distract herself awhile. Might as well reread the text while she was at it. The back of her mind still needed reassuring.

But now she was looking at it with a new set of eyes. If it _were_ a code, the oysters would certainly be the focus. She'd definitely mentioned that story with the oysters, the story of the man who tried to take Holmes' life with an insidious disease. (And was eager to watch Holmes as the last of his life ebbed away, too. At least Kira killed at a distance. He would be denied that satisfaction. Stop it, Monique.) And she'd mentioned it because Gevanni – because _Steve_ had brought up Moriarty first.

Laura Lyons from _Hound of the Baskervilles_... she'd specifically said that book was her favorite, because Watson solved most of the case on his own. “L.L. and the ashes,” she'd said, taking a sip of her iced cappucino. “Good stuff.” But Watson usually botched the investigations he was handed, and Laura Lyons was an outright dupe. It was still fitting, damn it.

_but it's still a party._

Monique was pretty bowled over when she'd read the card. “Your full name and everything,” she'd laughed, but it came out more as a giggle. She hadn't had someone that interested in her in years – if you took into account how much less cagy everyone was back then, anyway. But Steve had just told her he was like that with everyone, standing there all nonchalant with the sign over his shoulder reading “THIS IS AN OFFICIAL CAMERA HAVEN. VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED.” He wasn't boring, Monique thought, and he didn't look suicidal, so he must have a weird lack of fear.

Well, yeah. A fake identity would explain that.

And he _didn't_ look suicidal. He thought he could handle the oysters on his plate.

Monique gave a ragged snort. Euphemisms. L was dead. L was fucking dead, but Steve – _Gevanni –_ thought he could take on Kira anyway. And he could even be right.

What the _fuck_ did he have to tell her all this for? Was it really need-to-know? Even if she were stupid enough to say anything, the world would just see it as another wild conjecture tossed on the pile, but just for her peace of mind...

Well, what if _he_ was just talking out of his ass?

That was possible. That was very possible. Gevanni could just be impatient; _she'd_ felt that way often enough. But either way, she knew why he'd go to _her_ about it

_NB: Save room for dessert!_

That clinched it, if nothing else did. It'd take a flamboyant business-major sort of douchebag to put “NB” before a pick-up line, and that, she'd have picked up in person.

Dessert. What comes after Kira. Her very public pet issue.

“Are you suggesting that Kira is not a serious concern?” Sheriff Bentley had said across the pressboard desk yesterday. If there was one thing fiercer than Bentley's mustache, it was his feeling against Kira. Sometimes, he actually managed to put Kira too high on his list of priorities. But yesterday, he'd placed Kira as the top concern when invited to imagine a world without him. When they already had one- or two-week sample doses to demosntrate. That was just pigheaded.

Pigheaded, or maybe he'd just resigned himself to the idea that Kira was eternal.

Resignation, despair... Maybe Gevanni knew he had no idea about L, and was just trying to see if she'd float or sink if she were thrown into the deep end.

Maybe. Or maybe he was completely informed after all. But no matter what Gevanni knew or thought, and no matter what Kira did or didn't do, Monique Hutton knew she'd float to the last.

But she had to set contingencies and choose her own ground. For all intents and purposes, she was meeting a stranger tonight.


	2. Workaday Blues

Chantal hadn't wanted Monique to go to work this morning. Chantal had caught her in the kitchen after she'd made preparations, scrubbing the floors almost to erosion because she'd already got the dishes, the range and the counter and she wasn't buried in mindless work yet. And Monique could definitely see where Chantal was coming from. She must have looked like hell. But they needed every hand, they always did, and with Skopje going to suspect protection, she wouldn't have any beat to fuck up today anyway.

And she never liked missing work for any length of time, anyway. After a week off, coming back to work was like her eyes had missed a step. Everything was rearranged, and she had to play catch-up and draw up a new map to fit.

She'd just gone to work yesterday. But that was just the feeling she had on the drive there. Stumbling over blocks she'd never seen before, laid in place while she was away. Unlocking her car – she was probably the only one in the whole building who bothered with locking by now. Driving the turnpike – traffic stops weren't getting so much revenue lately. Kira hadn't killed anyone for speeding, but people might be getting worried that he'd start, bowing before he'd even walked into the room. Pulling into the parking lot of the premises – the anchor of a strip mall they'd moved into just last year, when the long-standing taboo against laying off police was broken. The crappy pressboard reception desk, and the bolted door and steel walls behind it.

The foundations of her world had always been this unsteady. But she was only now taking a long, hard look at the cracks.

“Late-night call-in?” said Max the intern.

“Late night on my own time,” said Monique, too tired not to be casual. “Happens.”

“Cool,” he said. “You're free to punch--” Max broke off and looked past Monique at whoever had just opened the door.

It was Reese Young, the teenage Kira Nation of West District, flushed with the fiery hurt that only a teenager on a crusade can possess. Monique shrugged and shuffled off to the punchcard reader; she'd seen this scene about eight times already and didn't want to add any new reflections to it.

“Hi, Reese,” said Max, customer service mode engaged. “What's the trouble?”

“Officer,” said Reese loudly, as if to drown out Max's part in this conversation, “is it true that Josh Serrano was dismissed from the force pending charges?”

“Serrano?” she said, hoping she sounded as indifferently bureaucratic as possible. “He doesn't work at West District Main. Couldn't say.”

She knew Serrano damn well, actually. He was the reason her partner was being taken out from under her. But for that matter, knowing Theresa Young, she probably read the news off her Namebook feed anyway, and was just here to make a scene.

But she didn't look ready to blow. Actually, she looked sort of off-balance.

“Homicide isn't here?” she said.

“It is,” said Monique. “But it's not a department now. It's just part of your responsibility once you have enough field experience.”

“That's... that's great.” By the wide-eyed shine in her eyes, Monique's hopes of throwing her a bone had panned out. “So, well, where does he work, then?”

“Apprehension and Detention.”

“Suspect protection,” said Young, making sure.

Monique nodded. He'd been secretly photographing detainees and passing the photos to Kira. She was dimly surprised it bothered Young, but she was in a mood for that kind of surprise.

“Okay,” she said, looking down. “Okay, I can sort of see the conflict of interest there. Got to head towards school now. Thanks.” It was quarter of six, so she'd probably be okay if she wasn't walking five miles to get there, but Monique guessed this way she got to leave with a bit of dignity.

Every history book she'd ever read told Monique that when it came to bloodthirsts, the bloodthirst of the idealist was the worst. But still, an honest quest for truth had to count for something in Young's case. She only hoped it wouldn't be the same “something” that Leon Trotsky and Georges Danton got.

For one thing, it would mean Kira's reign had progressed to Terror to begin with.

Guh. Just get to work. She motioned to Max.

“Oh, right.” He activated the intercom. “Officer B-17 cleared to enter.”

She noticed the intricate way the door unbolted more than she had in a while. Count on Sheriff Bentley to scrape the bottom of the barrel for strategic scraps of big-budget paranoia. Maybe they'd actually be calling her Officer B-17 before this was over. Maybe it would be sensible.

Nah. She'd at least get a promotion before that happened.

Early, and not in a good frame of mind for paperwork. So she poured herself some coffee, grabbed her mindless-fluff-of-the-week (Clive Cussler) out of her bag, and settled down in one of the basement-church folding chairs in the conference room.

Soon most of the colleagues filed in, she sighed and put her book down, then in came Martha Broderick at six on the dot, with the face that had been through so many cigarettes and high-stress early mornings that it had actually stuck that way. Amazingly, Backowski puffed in about thirty seconds after her.

“Glad you could join us so soon, Backowski, you're on the reassignment header.”

Monique flicked her eyes to Skopje, whose lanky shoulders made a minute shrug.

“Sure, get that out of the way first. Skopje's headed to the Darks today, he's just here to finish up his paperwork and clear out his desk. Backowski, that makes you Hutton's new partner. You're the only desk jockey at West who knows the ropes.”

Backowski hadn't run a beat practically since Monique joined the force in '07, and at his job, he'd do what you pointed him toward and then stop till you pointed him again. He didn't know his own keyboard cable, never mind any ropes. But options were tight. The foundations were buckling. It was bound to get personal with her workday one of these days. Probably better that it was today, really. She might be too dazed to show her disappointment.

But either something did show on her face, or Broderick recovered her senses on her own. “Yeah, scratch that, the ropes have moved around a lot since then. Hutton, get him on the ball with new procedures.”

“Yes, ma'am,” said Monique atonally.

“And do it pronto, because we're going to be using a lot of them pretty damn soon. Three fucking photo rackets as of yesterday.”

Skopje coughed. “Are we certain that these new groups have no ties to Bindweed?”

“Not completely. But they're lower-budget, their MOs are clunkier, it's a pretty fair bet. Guaranteed none of us wants another Bindweed--” (she jerked her thumb to the horrorshow web-graph hierarchy on the side wall, where everything that wasn't a blank space was an alias and half the lines were speculations,) “--so let's break out the Round-Up on these idiots before they start franchising, got it?”

 _Before they metastatize_ , Monique would have said. Photo rackets were the one class of criminal everyone could despise - Sheriff Bentley, those Scales of Anubis Kool-Aid drinkers, even the Mercy Party idiots who'd called themselves “anti-incarceration” before '06. And yet, they just kept popping up. The City was up to four Bindweed-level groups – two before they'd stopped telling the public about it. Chicago, by all accounts, was positively infested. True to stereotype, the LAPD dropped the ball long enough for the conventional crime rings to go anonymous, but in every other major city, a Bindweed grew. Kira's world was fertile soil for them.

“But like I said, they got off to a rocky start.” Monique registered that there were two small, fairly straightforward charts tucked to the side of Bindweed. “Dorian A is sloppy. Cameraman issues the ID, then a couple of days later, he's asking our boy Neo to run crack. Now, Dorian B's a bit smarter. Knows to start small. But he had the bad luck to run into a real principled ronin right out the gate. So let's not make it her bad luck too.

“We've got the photo premises, we've got a decent idea what these cameramen look like, so all we've gotta do is get to the Dorians ASAP without kicking the hive on the way. All hands."

Broderick looked ruefully at Backowski. “Well, all hands that aren't flailing from being thrown in the deep end, anyway. Hutton, show Backowski the new procedures for beat and revenue. Tuscarora. Skopje, I've spoken to...”

Her mouth worked.

“...I told _Commisioner Batman_ to get you on interrogation tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” said Skopje, unflappably.

“After you've packed up for the warehouse, go ahead and cover for data entry.”

After the meeting, Skopje allowed himself to show a bit of amusement. “Well,” he told Monique, “he couldn't go by 'Head of Apprehension and Detention Services' forever.”

“No,” Monique agreed. “But he could have gone with something snappier. Like... er... Dark Commander.” The fuzz in her brain was seeping in again, like radio static. “No, still goofy.”

Skopje quirked an eyebrow in the way that meant _Do tell._

“I'm really gonna miss you, you know,” she said in a rush. It was at least honest.

“Compared to Backowski, yes. And all the dark unit knows about me is I'm not Josh Serrano, and that's probably enough for _them._ ”

“Yeah,” said Monique dully. “Harald Skopje in a nutshell. More curious than a brick wall and not too fond of murdering detainees. You're totally wasted babysitting shoplifters, you know.”

“Might as well say a firefighter is wasted playing checkers between alarms. I'll be all right, Hutton.”

All right, so maybe she was the only one losing out here. No sense pitching a fit.

“Ah, speaking of alarms. How _did_ your meeting with Bentley pan out?”

“Oh, yes... he's... he's still considering it.” If she needed to lie later, that kept all her options open.

“Hmm,” said Skopje, frowning.

“If it is approved, you _will_ be a part of it,” she blurted. That walled her in a bit more, she realized belatedly.

“Thanks. And, Hutton...” Skopje laid a hand on her shoulder. “Whatever happened since I saw you last afternoon... I realize you would have informed me if there were anything I could do about it.”

_Do you say there is nothing we can..._

“But I'll keep you in my thoughts.”

“No. Don't... don't say that. Don't say... I mean, we can't do anything about what's already...” Jesus, she sounded like a crazy person. “Time. Time heals all wounds. Don't worry.” She forced herself back into a businesslike tone. “Time, and work. If burying yourself in work kills you, at least you've accomplished something beforehand.”

The look on Skopje's homely face was more paternal than Monique ever wanted directed at her. “It's not constructive if you can't work _well._ You should talk to Dr. Belmont. As long as you're working out those dreaded wimp muscles anyway.”

“My problem is Kira fucking things up again. So no, I shouldn't.” She'd seen him two years ago, a barely-insured newbie whose life had suddenly fallen to shit, and he'd tried – visibly – to be as understanding and sympathetic as possible, but she'd never forget that patronizing look he'd got on his face when she suggested Kira might have been _wrong._

“Not... not your sister?”

Helplessly, she broke out laughing. Was that funny? No, probably the gallows giggles. “Wow. Wow, things really _could_ be worse, couldn't they.”

“Glad I could stumble into conveying that,” said Skopje, tactfully refraining from further inquiries. “But seriously, Hutton, you may want to take a week off.”

Monique wiped away a mirthful tear. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. You're the second person to think that up all by yourself. Usually, that means I should listen to them.”

“You'll do good, Hutton,” said Skopje, raising his hand in farewell. “Might even rub off on Backowski.”

As she watched him stump off, she wasn't much cheered, because she remembered the contingency she'd left behind while the morning's blaze was still behind her eyes. If everything went wrong, it _would_ drag Chantal into the mess. And once that girl worked up an actual commitment, she had a hard time realizing when her part was over.

 

* * *

 

At 11 AM, Chantal was finally done churning out the lit crit essay she said she'd done the night before. She had no idea if it looked right, because she couldn't fathom an honest way to write about how words distort your perception of reality. (The day she got the assignment, she and Denny goofed around for a while trying to criticize _Great Expectations_ through interpretive dance. At least Denny's Miss Havisham impressions came through pretty clear.) When they got to the let's-put-on-our-Marx-hat in the syllabus, it'd be better; that was at least stuff she knew how to bullshit.

The class wasn't until five, so she was making pretty good time, considering that the whole crappy summer semester was something she wanted as far from her mind as possible. But better up her game. If she had to take lit crit and Current Affairs for the _third_ time around, she wasn't sure if Mo would kill her or her pounding brain would do the honors and beat her to the punch.

Well, no. Her game was as upped as it'd been for three weeks; she'd started the essay as soon as she got out of bed that morning. The actual morning, not the part of the night some sadistic Roman decided to toss in. There was one thing she wanted further from her mind than summer school, and it was the sound of Mo's frantic pacing that had woken her up when it was still dark out.

The way she'd been scrubbing the kitchen, wild-eyed, like her life depended on it... Chantal had _never_ seen her like that. No, probably she had, after Dad died, but then she'd been too miserable herself to really notice anyone else. And when Chantal asked her if she'd been smoking outside, she'd said she was, even though there wasn't a whiff of it anywhere about her. You didn't admit to something shameful you didn't do unless you had something even worse to hide.

She hadn't been out there long, and Chantal thought she'd heard a car door close while she was trying to will herself back to sleep. When they'd moved to this complex four years ago, that could mean anything, but there was a lot less nightlife these days. So she guessed she'd better have a look at Monique's car. No, her car too, just in case, and that she could do right now.

Just as soon as she checked her email.

Not. Fuck, wasn't she meaning to kick her procrastination in the head? She hoisted herself forcefully out of the chair and marched to the parking-lot door.

Yeah, Monique had been in her beater, all right. Who else was paranoid enough to lock a car door in this neighborhood? As far as Chantal was concerned, anyone desperate enough to risk death for her crappy car radio was welcome to it.

First, she went for the glove compartment. Nothing, and still stuffed with those out-of-date insurance cards Mo thought would get her hanged on a comma one of these days. Really, Mo? She didn't even drive badly enough to get stopped in the first place.

Center console still had her cans and chip bags on top. Side pocket, nothing but crumbs and wrappers. Maybe she had to start the car to find it out?

Yeah, no, anything she could think of that was activated by the ignition was as unlikely as it was stupid to test. But accessories, maybe? She tried that out, stiched to cassette, and got the mix tape that'd been in there since the first week.

If Monique had left something for her, she was hiding it pretty freaking well. And if she hadn't, well, what else was there to do with her car and act shifty about? Like, was there coke in the seat lining or something?

Given the early-morning scrubmania, that sounded kind of uncomfortably likely. She didn't think hard drugs were Mo's kind of crazy, but who went around saying “this is the first I've heard, but I'm sure my husband would take any heroin needles you had lying around”?

But leaving them with her? Would she seriously...? No, she wouldn't, but... ugh, fight paranoid with paranoid, right? Strip 'er down. First, she yanked the sun shield--

And a folded letter paper came fluttering down.

Oh. Okay. She wanted her to know something, but not _yet._ Not until she put the sun shield down, which would be... coming home in the evening on Monday.

Not much less freaked out here, she had to say. But better if she knew what it was about.

_If I am missing or dead since the twenty-eighth, tell my colleagues I was last seen at Ball's Bar and Grill with a tall English  man, slim and Caucasian with black hair and grey eyes, calling himself Stephen Gevanni and claiming to be an IT consultant for Microsoft, Apple, Banana and Debian. He wished me to meet him at his place of work on 3952 Tuscarora Service Rd. The life insurance should cover you to graduation if you don't need any more semesters. You've got it in you, kiddo. Mo._

Erk. Even expecting something paranoid, erk. And this guy sounded a lot like the douchebag she'd sort of not really dated yesterday, but if it was... yeah, there weren't enough questions in the world.

 

* * *

 

Ball's was good and packed with the trucking crowd even by seven-thirty. The digital jukebox was playing one of those deep-voiced Japanese metal guys just loud enough that you could still converse within five feet or so; she stepped to it the instant after she was shown to the corner table, scanned her card, and stuffed it with enough metal and hard rock to cover the whole appointment.

Which wasn't until nine, as she'd texted Gevanni a moment ago. She wanted the high ground any way she could get it. It was the most enjoyable stakeout she'd ever had, probably: brevity almost guaranteed, and she got to eat a nice hot chuck steak while she waited.

It was almost disappointing not to get any funny business, after all that. He showed up at her table at precisely nine on the dot, asked wordlessly to sit down next to her, and accepted her permission while remarking on her caution (“well, it's not as over-the-top as it used to be.”)

 

* * *

 

Chantal, who'd been sitting around nursing milkshakes for hours now, with a brief interlude to drop something when she saw Monique come in, had seen a guy who looked like Douchebag Steve pass her table. And while his attention was fixed on her sister, she moved to the booth whose wall was facing him. See him try anything now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as I'm still apparently getting hits, I expect you were getting worried about me. So, what happened between this chapter and the last, you might ask? The embarrassing truth is that mostly, I was faffing about on the Internet. So now I've installed Leechblock and - if the following phrase does in fact mean that I got rid of Subeta - then "Subeta suteta." Or I've restricted myself to an hour a day, anyway. That should help this story's speed immensely.


	3. The Pendulum Project

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, now we get to a serious chat with a character from the SPK. And you know what that means, don't you? Yes, that's right, massive blocks of expositional dialogue denser than a sci-fi protein brick. Granted, I love that stuff to the point where I once thought chapter two of Fellowship of the Ring was a valid audition piece, but as far as sane humans go, I think half the reason L and Near are so weird is so you get plenty of diversion during scenes like this. Shame I couldn't tailor Gevanni to match.
> 
> I had to go back and reread the entire second arc, not convinced I had Gevanni's voice right, but adjusting for the fact that that here, he's giving a briefing and revealing only what he needs to, and in canon, he's getting all the briefings and making sure to say everything he knows, I think it rings fairly true.

“So,” said Monique, “it's all right if this is a professional relationship, right? I can call you Gevanni?” Make sure they both got the right message.

“Yes, I think that would be best.”

Well, that was the last straw grasped at. “Good. Okay. So... before we get down to brass tacks, Gevanni... let's discuss sharp springs. The fucking oysters, I mean. How sure are you?”

“I have a very reliable source, and we can leave it at that.”

“Yeah,” she said. Resigned to it. Everything she'd ruminated over today boiled down to one thing: even if L were alive, he wasn't doing a very good job. “Okay, next question. How the _fuck_ are fucking oysters in your need-to-know policy? Couldn't you just be, like, a shadowy _philanthropist_ or some freelance _windmill-slayer_ or--”

Gevanni was waving her volume down. Then he thumbed to the girl sitting next to their booth.

Chantal. It was Chantal. How did she--

“Friend of yours?”

“No.” She couldn't let her sister get involved in this. “I just realized how badly I might have screwed up.” With one hand, she took a few deep swigs of water, as though to take in the heavy situation. With the other, she began a text to Chantal under the table.

_Not your concern. This is secret for a_

Gevanni's usual poker face suddenly seized with alarm as he lunged under the table for her phone – and got it, too. He'd caught her slack-handed.

“Friend of yours. Good, I was right.” He paused for further examination. “Not a camera phone, either. What else were you going to say to her?”

“ _This is secret for a reason,_ ” said Monique through clenched teeth. _“Sorry you had to find my note, I'll be all right._ ”

“There, now you've said it. I hope you don't mind if I keep this for the rest of our interview?”

Monique laughed feebly – she hoped not bitterly. “Well, over-the-top caution is probably a two-way street.”

Chantal got up and walked to the nearest regiseter as slowly as she was capable, throwing the two of them quick glances as though she expected Monique to get stabbed right here in the diner if she kept her eyes off her for more than ten seconds. Or maybe as though she expected her to start talking again. All the while, letting him get a good look at how much they resembled one another. Why did she have to put on that last extra layer of cleverness?

“There,” said Gevanni after she'd paid, “that's far enough for comfort. This note?”

“Stupid contingency,” said Monique. “Melodramatic time-delayed in-case-of-my-death thing. Well, it was _supposed_ to be time-delayed. I should've realized a crowded truck stop would have me covered in terms of immediate murder attempts, but for some strange reason, Steve, I wasn't thinking very clearly at that point. Oh. And don't worry what she might have overheard – she doesn't believe anyone wrote an entertaining book before 1980 or so.”

Gevanni steepled his fingers. “Thank you. That was where we left off. I mentioned the oysters so that you wouldn't think to go through official channels.”

Monique's anxiety seemed to freeze into solid ice. “Ah. So... when you said _Laura_ , exactly how far did you want me to take...?”

He shook his head emphatically. “Nothing dramatic. Or definite. Laura's not our top priority.” It was plain now he wasn't being squeamish the way she was, using these codes. He was avoiding snatches of conversation that could attract attention if the music lulled. “But with the hash they've made so far, my superior thinks it best to contact the task force only when we...”

He pointed out an approaching waiter, ordered a slice of cheesecake, and, once the waiter was at a decent distance again, continued: “Only when we have to.”

“So, you're not up to Japan at the moment, is what you're trying to say.”

Gevanni sighed in a way that seemed targeted more at himself than at her. “Hutton, we're not a formal organization at the moment. It's water torture to get political backing at the best of times, never mind at times when you have to be very careful outlining so much as your mission statement.”

Monique knew better than to ask why he needed political backing. Private detectives who decided to do all the work without consulting anyone weren't exactly smiled upon by officials. Not even L, when he first made the news, though it did help that the Met couldn't figure out how to arrest him before they started to think better of ignoring him.

But...

“So we're talking long-term. Years, maybe.”

“That's the forecast at the moment,” said Gevanni gravely.

Monique forced herself to narrow the scope of that thought. “In that case... in that case, my strategy wouldn't hold together. Not without a lot of tweaks.”

Gevanni nodded as though this was fully to be expected. “What did you have in mind?”

“I – thank you. I was expecting to be directed from high on this.” Monique chuckled to herself. “Actually, to be honest, I was sort of expecting you to be the director. It's the whole James Bond thing.”

At this, Gevanni paused. Then he apparently needed to stifle a burst of laughter; it looked he was trying to swallow his lips.

“Er, what'd I say, exactly?”

He shook his head, a smirk and a few surprisingly earthy giggles escaping as though they'd had to force the door. “Private reasons... not easy to explain... oh, that's my cheesecake on the way.”

Monique wondered what the waiter must think, seeing an intense conversation punctuated by stony silences whenever he came close. Eh, probably not a lot, actually, judging by the usual quality of police reports.

Gevanni took a bite of his cheesecake and clicked his tongue uncertainly. “I'll need a word with Mack about what he puts on his bucket list. This is the most mediocre thing I've ever tasted.”

“Bucket...? Oh. That's not New York cheesecake. Unless you count the geography, and there are a lot of diners out of state that don't even have that excuse for false advertising. If you're going to the City, you'll have better luck there. He's gone now,” she added. “So... a few more preliminaries. Why the cryptic text? Are the phone servers compromised?”

“Not that I've heard, and I'm in a position to hear. But you'll probably need to use off-the-cuff codes at some point, and I wanted to make sure you were up to it.”

Barely up to it, then. She'd had to sleep on it. But she wasn't about to mention that. “Okay, next. Since you obviously trust me with some big-ass anvils – thanks again for that, asshole – why don't you want me in your informal non-organization?” She paused. “Oh. Probably because my Japanese vocabulary basically consists of _konichiwa_ , _arigato_ and _shinzo hossa_.”

“That'd be a drawback,” agreed Gevanni cheerfully. “But we didn't even think to look that deep. Your place is on the Pendulum Project for one plain reason: you thought up the eventuality, and resolved to do something about it. I could tell you there was someone that qualified in every target area, but it'd be a lie.”

Monique smiled, maybe half-genuinely. “Pretty considerate of you, thinking of these eventualities before you depose anyone. Honduras sure didn't get the memo, and I have to think _someone_ there read a history book. Is that also why you sounded out my politics at the Queen Bean? To avoid a few more revolutionary pitfalls?”

“Yes, murderous zeal with power never seems to end in sunny picnics. Shame, too. If not for that, and the part where they don't like to think, ah, Smith is mortal and fallible, the other party would actually be easier to work with.”

Monique snorted.

“They would, seriously. Guaranteed distaste for crime, no need to drop 'big-ass anvils', more likely to understand that if we get our way, there'll be serious housekeeping to be done... but victory brings out the worst in people.”

“Not always. But if you believe in killing for the greater good, then yeah, pretty much.” She picked up her fork and stabbed at a cold steak remnant. “And it just has to _look_ like victory to make the criminal element all giddy. They did wait a few more days during that repose last December, but if you're into festive looting, you're not exactly Mr. Impulse Control.”

“I take it you're ready for brass tacks?”

“Victory.” The mental fuzz was creeping back in with a cold draft behind it. “If it brings out the worst in people... zealots...” She shook herself. “Yeah, definitely ready for brass tacks.”

“Then here's the bottom line. You do what you think best and keep us informed about it. We fund you as needed. For this purpose we'll set up an account we have full access to; we really don't need any graft.”

“I gotta say, I wasn't expecting such a free rein from a shadowy gaggle of spooks.”

Gevanni shrugged. “We have our own priorities. And in any case, we don't want a top-down approach here. It's the evolutionary struggle: the bacterium agaist the antibiotic, the codemaker against the codebreaker, the policeman against the criminal. And if all goes well, the Pendulum Project will face a strain it has never seen before, so having a wide variety of remedies to choose from is just good sense.”

“All right, so... I guess the point still holds that we go for the photo rackets first, while they're off-balance and unable to intimidate the new conscripts. Though, if this is going to take a while... we could consider other options. If anyone wanted a shinzo, it's a fucking dorian.”

“If it gets to the point where dorians often show up on Namebook Neighborhoods, don't bother asking if we're alive,” said Gevanni. “We've lost either way.”

“Yeah,” said Monique, wincing. “Yeah. I didn't seriously mean that, you know. So, anyway. Bindweed first, focus on the bottom. Um, that's what we call our local network,” she added, as Gevanni opened his mouth to ask.

“From the garden work I did as a kid, that seems appropriate.”

“Understates things, believe me. But anyway, everything else... well, the miscellaneous clowns might be more gun-shy. Prepare themselves more. The guys who still go to prison for felonies... they'd be very canny, very desperate, or some other kind of thing on which you dump all the cars you can get.” She shook her head with a half-smile. “Christ, I bet there'll be all kinds of two-bit vigilantes coming out of the woodwork, too. So. I'll need to work with all that, plus some more things I haven't thought of yet, and of course the crap nobody will see coming.” Somehow, just listing all the extra shit that might hit the fan filled her with more life than she'd had since Bentley had turned down her project. She looked Gevanni dead in the eye. “Drop me your contact info, and I'll let you know when I have the new game plan. No, wait. First you can clue me in on one last thing.”

“That being?”

“Where's the proof that you're involved in any of the things you say you are?”

Gevanni sighed. “I was hoping we wouldn't get to that. I do have proof that won't compromise us in any way, but I won't come off well; I can only hope you'll want to work with me afterward.”

Monique stared. “You think my personal feelings about you have anything to do with whether the job needs doing?”

Gevanni whistled. “Not even a pause to consider. Good thing it wasn't Lidner in Acropolis; she might have moved in with you. Still, you will think less of me for this.” Even as he said that, he opened his briefcase, pulled out the manila envelope on top, slid it sideways to Monique. “The first thing you should know is I've let you believe things about our meeting in the Queen Bean that aren't factual.”

On top was Joey Benson's criminal record, his courtroom sketch in the header – the one that got the lines of his face, the pimple that'd been on the side of his nose, but somehow missed his chipped second incisor and his whole don't-give-a-fuck manner. Still kicking about in the state prison, apparently. She'd stopped checking on it, months ago, but now he was what Kira currently considered a cold case. Really fucking went to show. Below that... her psychiatric record. Below that, a studio photograph of Mom with Ethan fucking Castle... She let the whole thing drop back onto the table. “How the fuck did you get this? How is this proof of anything?”

Gevanni shrugged minutely, as if to say I told you so. “Firstly, I got it through a combination of social engineering and hacking. This shows I have an adequate skillset, and a motive to thoroughly research candidates for this project. Secondly, you'll notice I've highlighted the dates.” He cleared his throat, and Monique knew he was going to fucking repeat them.

“June 22.” Mom, killed with Castle by a burglar who targeted love nests. “August 4.” Dad, killed by Kira for it. “October 10.” The day they caught the guy who actually did it. “All in 2007... we've run analyses. That was during a period in which the judgments were particularly sloppy. He'll still get the wrong man in cases like yours, but not as often. And Benson would certainly be dead, were he apprehended today with the protocol you used then.”

Gevanni'd been around the block a few too many times, or else he'd never spoken to surviving family in his life. Go with the last one. He couldn't be thirty and everything about him screamed “spook.” But... what she was hearing meshed with the things she knew. December of 2007, just before the dark unit, detainees barely made it past their cell doors before dying. Too many people with access to the mugshots, it turned out. But they never dug up Benson's photograph. The leaker must have thought he was old news. And she knew that, despite everything, she'd wished then that they'd thought differently.

Gevanni, though. Gevanni had to be everything he said he was. Or else a guy who did enough research that faking it would be a phenomenal waste.

“So you're sure this doesn't compromise your case,” said Monique flatly.

“What I have told you, you can get in its rough outlines simply by reading between the lines during the Golden News – though of course our actuaries produce a much clearer picture. Nothing compromising has passed my lips.”

“I believe you. But you're right,” said Monique icily. “I do think less of you for it.” She paused about ten seconds, just to watch him squirm. Strictly speaking, there was nothing to watch, but she was sure it was there under the poker face. “And I'm right, too. I haven't changed my mind.”

The way he relaxed was visible. “Glad to hear it.” He drew out a bit of blank letter paper, took a pen from his shirt pocket, and with it, somehow filled the entire sheet in the space of about five minutes. He then passed it to Monique, who was further bowled over to find it completely legible.

Gevanni's contact info took up comparatively little space, considering. It was his alias and his public key. The rest was a set of complicated but well-stated instructions about how to use the same proxy-happy, user-hostile platform he did.

“I think I can hack it,” said Monique. “But you don't ask everyone to do that, do you? You can have all the street smarts and good character in the world and still not know to press CTRL-ALT-DEL when Windows freezes. I've known more than a few.”

Gevanni nodded. “There are more plug-and-play options too. They go obsolete more quickly, but if they're the tool for the job...”

A soft pop ballad came in on the jukebox; you could hear the excitable six-year-old three booths away, and the union guys in the middle of the restaurant who'd outdrunk their own volume control. Despite everything, Monique had been cutting it awfully fine. She said nothing more, because what she was itching to say was some undefined thing that would get him back for digging up all her shit. Just shook his hand, pocketed his paper, paid for her meal, and walked.

And found Chantal waiting just outside the door, staring hard-eyed at every exiting guest until she lighted on Monique. “Taking your own car?” she said, a bit pointedly.

“Yeah,” said Monique. The kid had been spectacularly careless in the face of what she'd seen as a very real threat, and never seemed to realize it, but chewing her out for it wouldn't help matters until they weren't surrounded by people.

“Cool, I'll be right behind you,” said Chantal.

What use did she expect to be in a convoy at night, anyway? All she'd do is look pretty much like a badly-hidden tail, and block Monique's view of anything behind her. Good thing it didn't look like much of a concern.

No, she realized as she opened her car door. It was a concern. Chantal was involved now. And, with an icy stab, she knew something else, too. The text her sister had read and the bit of conversation she'd overheard, harmless in and of themselves, had something in common. That something was the word “oyster.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this talk of "target areas" raises an obvious question: Is Tokyo one of them? And the answer is in fact yes. I don't intend ever to tell this tale, because I'm roughly as proficient with Japanese names as NISIOISIN is with English ones, and not that clever besides, but in a nutshell: the SPK aims here to kill two birds with one stone by finding someone outside the task force who knows of L's death. The obvious choice is Kitamura, who directed the police at the time. He did indeed know. He has since taken a fatal tumble down the stairs - but not before breaking the news to his daughter, a.k.a. the onetime second-strongest Kira suspect, when she recounted a very awkward attempt at conversation with Mogi. She's made of considerably stronger stuff than her father, and, as a coroner's assistant, she's well-connected but not the obvious leader Monique is - which, in Japan, is naturally preferable. It's she who gives them their lead on Higuchi's arrest, and just for jollies, there's an uncomfortably close brush with contacting Aizawa about it.
> 
> By the way, as this is as close as I'm getting to a Valentine's Day post: My theory is that Misa did not live out her full lifespan. It's just about mathematically impossible. However, the Death Note that killed her did not belong to Ryuk, but to a more hide-bound shinigami who feared that someone would find the secret to her long life and use it against the shinigami world. Given Misa's track record, this shinigami does have a bit of a point.


	4. The Anonymity Effect

Denny shook his head in exasperation as they mounted the curb of the last residence hall. “Yeah, she's clearly doing something off-the-books, I'd avoid seafood if I were you, but I don't see you helping. Guy knows what you _look_ like, I mean, come on.”

“At least I don't look like Mo,” Chantal pointed out.

“Meaning that she's built like a truck and you were exiled by the pixies for extreme gawkitude. Doesn't help your case much. Also, you're the exact same shade of black and _live in the same apartment._ ”

“But... I mean... there's so much that doesn't make sense!” said Chantal hotly. “I mean, when has she ever been angry that someone kept her in the loop? And why did she show me the text if--"

“That's just a clever-sounding way of saying you have no idea what you're getting into,” said Denny with an air of finality.

Chantal only bit her lip and kicked at the sidewalk. Denny didn't know what he was talking about, but she couldn't muster any good retorts at the moment.

“So,” said Denny, “meant to ask you. I remember you agonizing over O-Chem and calculus this spring. How is it that you only failed the easy As? I mean, you're an _education_ major. And you're not even a math person.”

“Sounds weird, I know, but I'm majoring in education because I want to teach people. Math and science are useful for that. Vomiting what the professor tells you all over a paper until he can see his face in it, not so much.”

“Hey, lots of real-world use for telling people what they want to hear. I bet if you talked to some actual K-12...” His posture went ramrod, like he'd remembered something crucial. “Hey. Where are they holding this assembly again?”

“Livingston.” Which meant _Robert Livingston Hall._ Acropolis Metro wasn't exactly Ivy League, but they tried to hold their own where stuffy local pride was concerned.

“About five minutes from here. Okay, hang on.” He dropped his bag on the lawn, rummaged through it a bit, and came out with a sparkling green full mask.

Chantal stopped dead by the bike stand. “Okay, what the fuck?”

It didn't slow him an instant in tying it to his head. “This seminar's going to be a controversial one,” he said, his voice slightly muffled. “Guaranteed some fanatic's going to come in with a camera phone. And you never know when Kira's going to start killing dissidents again.”

“I...” Chantal was lost for a tactful way to tell him how tinfoil he sounded. “Sakura wasn't actually Kira.”

“No, of course not,” said Denny in world-wise tones. “It was that _other_ Japanese guy who runs around smiting people with heart attacks. And they pretty much caught him instantly, because all they had to do was look for a guy who sounded like Darth Robeson, I mean, if you're still in a mood for flimsy cover stories.”

“Denny, if you want inconspicuous, this isn't exactly your best bet.”

“Conspicuous I can live with. What can hurt me is a face, and speaking of, while I'm wearing this, call me _Emerald Shade._ ”

“Emerald...” Chantal had to crack up. “...what are you, a goth chick? I'll... I'll just pretend I don't know you, that should work. I guess the whole Mr. Caution thing doesn't apply if it's _your_ half-cocked plan?”

“Hark who's talking.”

“Well I'm not talking about a political debate I don't even know is... wait, did you seriously just say _hark?_ ”

“Hey, if it's good enough for Ron Weasley, it can't be _that_ fancy-pants.”

“Actually it was Harry. Ron didn't know about the Confunding.”

“Dork.”

“Says the guy who's going to an extra-credit seminar for a summer course he isn't even taking.” Chantal cleared her throat. “Okay, we should get a move on. Wear the stupid mask if you want.”

 

* * *

 

Monique's Pendulum call-sign was Genghis. She'd taken it from the first result on a thriller-title generator, on the basis that a random code name was highly unlikely to say anything about her personally. The strategy seemed to have panned out okay.

 _...and while your strategy does indeed allow for a broader recruitment pool_ , continued Gevanni's missive, _and you do have a good sense of segregating by knowledge levels, be aware of instances where it's clear you're shooting for the long term, and not simply for the reposes. Also note that we will drop in periodically for first-hand checks on your progress._

Meaning that, on the off chance that there was anything behind her willingness to have featherweights on the team, they'd know, and they'd follow through with extraordinary rendition or some shit. Good thing that was something Monique didn't see herself worrying about.

_Finally, and bluntly: you have a long, hard series of years ahead of you. If I were you, I would think seriously and carefully about designating a successor. But don't agonize about telling them the gory details – if it comes to that pass, we're the ones who'll call them._

_To finance. While I understand that, by and large, you need to assess the manpower you will be able to work with, the Gilmerton Security account has already been made available with funds for an armored truck. Account details:..._

Monique closed the ForgivNet window. Yeah, she'd take care of that once she had staffed premises where one could reasonably _park_ an armored truck. With any luck, a legitimate business would at least partially pay for itself.

Though if these guys had any sort of spending cap, they weren't in a mad dash to spell it out.

Monique did like to know more about the people employing her. It wasn't exactly practicable in this case, and she did know everything she needed to (if not a heaping plate of oysters more), but even so, the idea of handing in progress reports to some council of vague secrecy didn't strike her as a very concrete inspiration on the day-to-day.

So, fine, just make some stuff up. Assume Gevanni was laughing because his boss is absolutely nothing like James Bond. The opposite of James Bond? A very unsexy woman. So she's about sixty years old, weighs 280 pounds, wears a blonde beehive hairdo with the roots coming in, and looks as belchy as a Far Side character whenever she opens her mouth. And she bakes industrial quantities of half-charred peanut butter cookies and is wounded when Gevanni doesn't eat them. Call her Mabel, it's alphabetical. And she's so rich because she took over the Gates Foundation around the time people stopped caring.

There, mission accomplished.

First _serious_ mission: bring Skopje in. Even if she hadn't sworn she would, Skopje would be the man to take up the torch if anyone was. Better disabuse him of Bentley being involved straightaway; not like the two would never talk again. Hell, he probably hadn't believed her about Bentley to begin with. But what to tell him? Monique couldn't imagine him contacting the Kira task force unless he had actual evidence regarding Kira, but still, _anonymous philanthropist_ wasn't exactly an explanation that would satisfy him. (Wouldn't satisfy her either, she had to admit to herself.)

The truth?

Was he prepared to hear that? Could she even get it out? Never mind emotions. Emotions come and go, but it's tough to kick knowledge out of residence. Was she just going to drop that bombshell on _everyone_ the moment she didn't have a better idea? Fuck no, she wasn't. She was pretty sure Kira didn't know about Gevanni's people, and it was going to damn well stay that way.

But what, then?

Okay, got it. In desperation, she'd cashed out her entire IRA. She didn't even _have_ an IRA, but she'd never got into the habit of finance pissing contests. And if she did have one, or if she'd had it since a teenager, anyway (which wasn't _entirely_ outside the realm of possibility), she'd probably be able to afford the starting capital for Gilmerton.

Not much more than that, though. And hooboy did she _not_ want to look like a crooked cop here. Any way you looked at it, she'd be dead and she'd discredit the whole idea of the Pendulum Project in the process. So she'd have to turn an actual profit in private security. Tall fucking order in this day and age.

Had to be done, though.

Before Skopje, she'd have to find a marketing consultant with a good track record. And that wasn't easy even these days; bad consultation wasn't _legally_ fraud, and it rarely stopped your typically clueless execs from hiring anyone. And the good ones probably mostly operated on what'd worked for other people in the past, so they'd be useless for security... hm. Well, either she'd think of a better lie or she'd figure out how to turn a profit. ASAP.

And then it'd be on to staffing the place, and sniffing out Kira supporters who genuinely cared about public safety but not enough to put out hits on people, and...

Monique never did get how people managed to be happy relaxing on a vacation. But even so, she wasn't too pleased to hear her phone ring at that moment.

 

* * *

 

More people had showed to the heart disease awareness seminar than Chantal had thought possible for the number of people taking summer courses. Actually, some of them probably _weren't_ taking summer courses. A lot of them were a bit too old, and a few too many of them were wearing dress shirts and engaged in earnest conversation. Political junkies, she decided. Probably heard about this on some kind of mailing list.

On the platform, the gaggle of twenty-somethings in the bright white-on-red AUTOPSY NOT ASSUMPTIONS shirts were milling about chattily as they plugged in their multimedia equipment, clearly gearing up for one of those “fun” presentations over which she'd take the get-droned-at-and-take-notes model any day.

Next section over, Denny, who'd entered through a different door than Chantal had, took a seat at the very top and clasped his hands in an attitude that was right on the border between interested and defensive. Chantal sighed and took out her phone to write:

_just because youd be safe arguing is no reason to st_

“ALL RIGHT, WE'RE ALMOST READY!” said one of the hosts, a tanning-bed veteran with a perky ponytail and a parade-ground voice. “OUR EQUIPMENT DOESN'T DO WELL WITH RADIO INTERFERENCE, SO WE'D APPRECIATE IT IF YOU TURNED OFF YOUR CELL PHONES, PLEASE!”

Chantal wasted no time pressing send, but of course Denny the Green-Crested Cuckoo had to be just as quick about turning off his phone.

After everyone had a chance to rummage for their phones, the chubby guy at the synthesizer played a tuba rendition of the Ride of the Valkyries over the speakers and the delegate wannabes (were they ronin? featherweights? local-politics no-lifes who wanted to bitch about the coroner's fees?) quieted down.

“So,” said Ponytail. “Bet you think know what awareness is, right? People go out on the plaza and push flyers at you telling you that you can't get AIDS from a toilet seat. Like, thanks a lot for making me aware, person, I had no idea.”

Scattered chuckles from the legitimate student body.

“Now, when I went to school – most of you too, probably – we heard about saturated fat and cholesterol until our ears turned blue. So you might think this is the same kind of thing. But me, I think we actually forgot that legitimate heart disease exists, and in fact outkills Kira five to one in this country.”

Stating the obvious as a revelation, with the sanctimonious _we_ that meant _everyone but us._ Any chance of learning anything from this assembly was already a bust, but she could at least write an easy essay and swing a PLEASE RESUSCITATE bracelet on the way out.

The death of Lind L. Tailor came up on the screen. It'd been so overexposed that no one even complained about their kids seeing it any more. “So this is what we call an _acute myocardial infarction._ Sudden, serious and generally painful. Kira doesn't do any other kind. So if a heart attack sneaks up on you, you're not being shinzo'd. And obviously, same goes if you're breathing afterwards. So those are some obvious points to rule out. But even if you do witness something like this, don't assume the guy collapsing in front of you had some terrible secret before you get him to the hospital. Deaths from natural heart disease have shot up--”

“So if the autopsy says you didn't have any coronary blockage or anything do we assume it's a horrible secret _then?_ ” said Denny loudly. Chantal groaned. “Because some people might beg to differ with you on that – Haley Belle, Jordan Bullook, Marco Mena--”

“Questions and comments after the show,” said a sunburned, sideburned guy on the stage.

“And lay off the Kookabara,” called a rosy-cheeked blonde girl, maybe seventeen, who was sitting with the delegates.

“Oh, yeah,” shouted Denny, “devastating rebuttal. Point out that I agree with a person you disagree with and make a schoolyard pun on his name. You even know who Haley Belle _was_?”

“Does it matter? If Kira wanted her dead, she deserved to die!”

The synthesizer guy let out what sounded like a foghorn. Too late, though; the next noise was some other guy from the political peanut gallery yelling, “We don't even know who _you_ are, with that mask, so give me one reason to take you serious--”

“For your information, she was part of the FBI Twelve and also a complete and total badass, and you can't say my sources are biased because that was back before the major anchors got too chickenshit to--”

“You think you're so courageous? You won't even show your _face!_ ”

A lady in a pantsuit stood up. “And frankly, I don't blame him! Tanakabara is alive only because it would be bad publicity for Kira, and who'd blink if some kid bit the dust?” Okay, we had some ideological diversity going. Not a great thing to have, at this moment. She weighed her options and started sidling toward the top of the hall. Others followed her precedent, but unlike Chantal, they were probably headed straight through the exits. Chantal aimed to stick around a bit longer.

“You know what, who _would_ blink? The punk's disturbing the peace!”

“ _Listen_ to yourself! Is this where you saw yourself--”

“If you would all please settle down--”

“Show yourself!”

“ _Show your face!”_

Come on, _run_. But Denny just stood in the row below her like a resolute and dumber-than-usual rock. “You're sure representing that better world, aren't you, howling for my blood because I stated some _facts!_ ”

The people around Miss Socialist Realism started getting to their feet. So did the people around Pantsuit, but _they_ weren't rummaging in their pockets and bags. Oh _fuck this._

“RUN, YOU IDIOT!” she shouted. Denny looked round for two seconds before his legs came to their senses. “BLOCK THE EXITS!” she bellowed to anyone who cared to listen. “ _PEACEFULLY!_ ” He was through; she immediately went face-out, bracing herself against the doorway with both arms. If they gave her enough of a shove, she'd be activating the push-bar with her chest, assuming it even closed before...

Next thing she was aware of, someone, a rangy-armed guy, yanked the door closed. Then bolstered her on the outswing side.

Then someone else slammed into her, hard. She hit the door's bar, but despite the jolt of pain in her right elbow, she didn't let go of the frame. “Kathy, what are you-- that's _assault!_ ” she heard a girl say behind her.

“That's an enemy of Kira!”

“Because Kira just _loves_ assailants,” said the girl, even as she bolstered the position at her right arm.

“If it's against blatant incitement, maybe he does!” yelled Kathy the Women's Linebacker, but her voice was receding toward another exit.

Chantal strained to hear whether they'd got through any of the other doors, but all she could tell was there were still shouts and screams all around, and that could just mean that the brawl she'd seen brewing had joined. And the more she tried using her ears, the less they seemed to work properly.

Another person, not quite packing Kathy's wallop, slammed into her back. Then he lunged at the guy to her left. Then at the girl to her right. It'd hurt like hell pretty soon, but the three of them were at least too stable to break through.

And they were still trying to break through. That was probably a good sign.

“WE'RE CLEAR!” came a shout to her left. “THIS WAY!”

“AAAGH! I think it's my ACL, don't _leave_ me with these ronin pricks...”

And then a voice amplified by microphone: “All right, the police are on campus as we speak. If you want to explain yourself, stay where you are. If you've been photographed, you definitely want to explain yourself.” The footfalls rushing out the door to the left must have figured they hadn't been photographed, but everyone else stopped dead.

Chantal slumped against the door. God, Denny, what the _fuck..._

“By the way, I'm Reese Young,” said the girl to her right. Chantal looked blearily round to see the disturbingly wholesome-looking girl who'd made the jab about Tanakabara Koki.

“Paul Bentley,” said the guy at her left, grinning on adrenaline fumes.

“No relation to _Edward_ Bentley?”

“He's my dad. Still don't think I'm as crazy as he is, but I'm working on it.”

Reese's face went icy so fast it might have been flash-frozen. “Well, I guess this is probably the last thing we'll agree on, then. And you?” she asked Chantal.

“Not really in a big mood for introductions,” she gasped. She'd definitely pulled something in the right arm. “But thanks. You're not bad, for a Kira supporter.”

“You're not bad, either. But you _are_ incredibly misguided.” Reese pulled herself up and shook her head. “I'd better go see that no one got hurt by the actual criminals.”

“So what brings you to this doorway?” said Paul, getting loose from it himself.

“Saw a riot brewing,” she said curtly. “Wanted to keep it sane.” And that would be the story she'd be sticking to this evening.

“Hey, you know, you might have. Once everything's been pieced together.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I'd definitely vouch for you.”

“Sure,” said Chantal faintly. “But if I were the police, I'd ask the Heart Alliance people who saw the whole thing, not the sheriff's son who didn't.”

“Yep. Why do you think I used the hypothetical tense?”

She collapsed into a seated position by the doorway, closing her eyes against any chit-chat. Nobody was speculating that anyone was dead, at least. But then, Kira hadn't had his say yet. And Denny... she'd have to wait for him to call her. After her questioning. He had the sense not to be a pointless martyr to the cause, but damn little more than that. And he might have been a martyr whether he liked it or not.

“They could have picked a better time for a riot,” said a tall officer in a darkhelmet striding through the door.

The guy behind him sniggered. “Yeah, they're always inconvenient like that, riots. But don't worry. The new dorians are still priority number one. Batman might be insane, but he's not stupid.”


End file.
